EMI and Beatles settle. On with the digital downloads already!

EMI and Apple Corps have settled their royalty dispute, which finally opens up …

Apple Corps has been involved in a number of legal battles over the years—one of which being with Apple Inc. over trademarking issues, but another with record company EMI over a royalty disagreement. As of this morning, however, EMI and Apple Corps has settled the royalty dispute, to the tune of £30 million (or roughly $59 million).

It has been thought that the royalty dispute was one of the remaining factors that was keeping The Beatles from joining the rest of the world in putting their music online. Indeed, when EMI and Apple announced their agreement to go DRM-free last week, many were concerned about the distinct lack of "Beatles" in the whole deal. EMI has told the media that they were aware of the issue and were still working on resolving it with Apple Corps.

"We have settled on mutually acceptable terms and there will be no further comment," an EMI spokesperson told Reuters. And that's that, apparently. What's holding back The Beatles from making their non-iTunes-exclusive digital debut? Not much anymore, it seems. Seeing as it's already mid-April, with predictions that the Beatles' music would become downloadable in February, we'll just be waiting on the edges of our seats until it happens.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui